Published 4:00 am, Thursday, October 9, 2003

2003-10-09 04:00:00 PDT Nairobi, Kenya -- The world's poorest continent has long had a gambling itch. But with betting restrictions eased in some nations and with foreign investors and corporations beginning to capitalize on Africa's gambling market, more and more Africans are regarding the good life as just one scratch card, sports bet or roulette spin away.

There are lottery lines in South Africa and crowded gaming tables in Kenya. In Eritrea, one of the continent's most destitute countries, little boys sell instant lottery tickets to keep from going hungry.

"Casinos give you hope," said George Wainaina, 36, a Kenyan who has lost just about everything he owns at the roulette wheel. "It's not much hope, but it may be more than you have outside."

Bulgarians are bankrolling a new lottery in Kenya, and Chinese businessmen recently revived Uganda's Lotto. An American company based in Rhode Island, Gtech Corp., has joined with British, Australian and South African investors in the continent's fastest-growing sweepstakes of all, South Africa's National Lottery.

Gambling was severely restricted in South Africa during apartheid. But after the black-majority government liberalized the rules in 1996, dozens of casinos opened, and a booming lottery started. Players choose six numbers out of 49 and hope they match the ones generated by the Lotto Draw Machine -- a 1- in-14-million shot.

Since 2000, when President Thabo Mbeki inaugurated the lottery at a butcher shop in Cape Town, the game has grown by leaps and bounds, especially among the poor. A recent study indicated that 72 percent of South Africans now gamble; even 27 percent of unemployed South Africans try their luck.

Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa have had state-run lotteries since they gained independence in the 1960s. Others are only now turning to the industry as a form of economic growth.

Scientific Games, a New York company that produces scratch cards, has signed up nine African countries and is in negotiations with others. "The African market is a relatively small part of the world market, but it's growing," said Jim Trask, managing director of Scientific Games' International Division, based in Britain.

Its scratch cards for Eritrea, in the local Tigrinya language, feature photographs of jaguars, buffalo, toucans and giraffes. Matching them up can turn an investment of five nakfas, less than 50 cents, into a small fortune.

In Keren, a rural town in central Eritrea, some boys as young as 9 make money no matter what. They walk the streets with long strips of tickets, each selling as many as 200 a day. Whether buyers win or lose, the boys can take home enough to make their mothers happy.

Gambling puts Africa's rich-poor divide on dramatic display. In Kenya, impoverished people who hit the jackpot are profiled in the newspapers, always with a photograph of the smiling winner holding an oversize check. A payoff of 1 million shillings, or about $13,000, is considered life changing.

Similar amounts, however, are won or lost in minutes by the high rollers at the casinos or at Big Bets, a new sports gambling den here in Kenya's capital.

"Kenyans are the gamblers of the future," said Alessandro Scarci, an Italian who runs Big Bets.

Scarci has about 60 regulars now, 10 of whom he considers high rollers. One,

a pharmaceutical importer, already owes Scarci more than $100,000. He continues to gamble, using what he wins to try to pay off the debt.

"I do it for the thrill," he said, taking a break from watching a horse race on a big screen. "It relaxes me."

Frauds are frequent. Forgers in Kenya alter losing scratch cards so that they look like winners and then sell them on the streets. In South Africa, five men were arrested last year -- after frustrated losers turned them in -- for selling magic charms that were supposed to help people win the jackpot.

A Kenyan beer company, East African Breweries, is still trying to sort out what happened to its promotional lottery. It printed numbers inside the caps of its various bottled drinks, announced winning numbers and gave prizes to the holders of the matching caps. When the number 5774 won, more than 12,000 Kenyans showed up with caps bearing that number. The brewery called off the lottery and began and investigation. Some holders of 5774 caps have sued.

The average gambler is most interested in lottery tickets, especially the instant variety. The investment is small, but the dreams unleashed are big: a car, a home or farmland that stretches as far as the eye can see. Rarely, though, do the dreams come true.

The sellers dream, too. The countries of the Southern African Development Community, an economic bloc, are considering a regional lottery similar to the one already in place in West Africa. The African Association of State Lotteries has proposed a continentwide lottery that would offer an astronomical payoff although language and political divisions make the success of such a venture a long shot.

Even though many Africans must get by on less than a dollar a day, they often scrape together enough coins to gamble.

"I have never won, but I still have high hopes," said Gathoka Njoroge, 62, a Kenyan house servant. He would like to own his own place and hire his own servant.

Monica Muthoni, 27, a secretary in Nairobi, sets aside at least $1 of her $19 a week for the lottery. "Sometimes I forgo my lunch so I can buy a ticket to gamble," she said. "It's fun, you know, and I may end up becoming a millionaire."

There are few resources for those who become addicted. South Africa has a free hot line for problem gamblers and an industry-funded group, the National Responsible Gambling Program, to study whether the country's gamblers are becoming obsessive. "Winners know when to stop" is the group's motto. The percentage of problem gamblers in the country is 4.6 percent, up from 3.8 percent two years ago, according to studies.

That is not off the charts for countries where gambling is legal. However, as Peter D. Collins, the program's executive director and a professor at the University of Cape Town, put it, "There is a larger proportion of poor people here who, if they go too far, get into trouble very quickly."

Wainaina, the Kenyan roulette player, stays away from gaming tables these days, after losing his land and his wife. Unemployed, he still puts smallish bets on European soccer matches. "This isn't the best thing to do," he said. "I know I shouldn't be here. But I don't have anything better to do."

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Gambling executives try to keep the emphasis on the positive, noting that losing tickets mean a lot of money for good causes, like poor schools and health clinics, as well as tax revenues for struggling governments.

"Our slogan is 'Everyone is a winner,' " said Jeffery C. Bamford, chief executive officer of the Kenya Charity Sweepstake, which sells seven varieties of scratch cards at 800 outlets across Kenya. "We push the message that even if you don't win a prize, someone is benefiting."

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